


Picking Up A Pebble

by Ergott



Series: Like Ripples In A Pond [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Still and Silent Waters, But doesn't know if he can trust Pitch, Conflict of Interests, Gen, Growing guilt complex, Jack really wants to be friends, M/M, Pitch does nothing to help, Possible Friendship, Pre-Slash, Unexplained motivations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:43:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergott/pseuds/Ergott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Still and Silent Waters. Jack wakes up in Pitch’s lair and can’t quite decide if Pitch is the worst poker player in the History of Ever or if he’s secretly a little bit of a mother-hen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picking Up A Pebble

Jack had often contemplated his spring-summer daze. He knew it wasn’t really sleeping because, in some way, he was still aware of the world around him, still had a vague understanding of the passage of time. There was never a full loss of consciousness, there were no dreams, just a dark and a coldness that soothed and sustained him over the months when winter was nothing more than an insubstantial memory. But there was a certain vulnerability in the daze, an inability to fully comprehend and react to outward stimuli. And after Pitch’s oh-so-endearing, weeks-long harassment, Jack’s daze had been deeper and quieter than ever this year.  
  
Which would explain his current predicament.  
  
Jack had eased into awareness and rolled out from under the bed, only to stare at the world around him in confusion. It took a few moments for the truth of what he was seeing to really sink in and, when it did, he honestly couldn’t figure out why he was so damn _surprised_.  
  
His floorboards, bed, and even his nightstand were resting in the heart of Pitch’s lair, like a stage set that had been lifted out of place. But what had he really expected? Jack had trusted Pitch in a moment of physical and mental weakness, and this was clearly just the consequence of that foolishness. He tried to be angry that Pitch had taken advantage of him, tried to work up a righteous indignation, but deep down Jack just felt upset. There had been a connection between them; two enemies standing on opposite sides of a bridge, both easing forward to meet on some common ground. Had it all been a trick?  
  
The thought _hurt_ , a sick kind of burning that tore through his chest and left him breathless. Friendship was still a new idea to Jack, something foreign and precious that he coveted. And that day under the bed, so many months ago, he could have sworn that there had been a spark of kinship between him and Pitch. Sure, Pitch was an enemy, but he couldn’t have faked that effortless understanding. _Could he?_  
  
Conflicted, Jack clenched his fists. It was only when his nails began to dig into his palms that he realized he was missing his staff. Panic, swift and pure, set his heart fluttering as he quickly began to search for it. Some days he felt that the staff was simply a crutch, a mental touchstone that helped him channel his powers but wasn’t strictly necessary. Only, whenever he began to think that, he couldn’t help remembering Pitch snapping his staff in two, couldn’t block out the memory of his frozen heart seizing up as though trying to melt its way out of his chest. Whether he needed the staff or not, he was undoubtedly connected to the wooden relic.  
  
His search of the stolen room turned up nothing. If his staff was here, it was hidden in the endless chasms of the Nightmare King’s home. Jack wanted to storm through every dark corner to search it out, but the sad truth was that without his staff, without that simple little crutch, he didn’t feel quite so capable.  
  
So he turned to Pitch instead, ready to shake answers out of the older spirit.  
  
The man in question was still under the bed, his shadows oozing along the floor restlessly, almost franticly, as though searching for Jack. It might have been endearing if the winter spirit hadn’t been seeing red.  
  
“ _Get **up**_ ,” Jack enunciated clearly, his anger icing the words into a bitter January wind.  
  
But Pitch merely gave an agitated groan and rolled over.  
  
And it struck Jack then that Pitch might actually sleep. It was a foreign idea, something he himself couldn’t do. Sandy had once jokingly hit him with dream-sand but, much to the little man’s consternation, Jack had been completely unfazed. It was another small detail that separated him from all the other spirits he’d met. For years, he’d thought that his inability to sleep stemmed from being a seasonally-based spirit. After all, the weather happened at all hours, so why shouldn’t he? But even in the dead of summer, when the magical Land of Nod would have been welcome, sleep eluded him; his daze was really more of a trance than anything else.  
  
Yet Pitch could sleep, and there was just something callously unfair about that. Why had the Man in the Moon created Jack to be so different? Why was he burdened with these strange discrepancies?  
  
Pushing his insecurities aside, the young Guardian crouched low and shouted, “ _Where’s my staff?_ ”  
  
He must have been startled but, to his credit, Pitch didn’t jolt or flinch. He merely cracked one eye open and gave Jack a decidedly annoyed, if somewhat uneven, glare. “Where did you last leave it?” he grumbled sleepily.  
  
“I’m not joking, Pitch,” Jack growled, but at the back of his mind there was a small splash of doubt. What if the Nightmare King didn’t have his staff? He could be jumping the gun with his accusations. But then, if Pitch didn’t have the crook, where was it?  
  
“And I’m not psychic,” the older spirit shot back, his other eye opening to hit Jack with the full force of his annoyance. “How should I know where you misplaced the stupid thing?”  
  
Was he being unreasonable? Was he merely jumping to conclusions because of the horrible way he’d met Pitch? Jack couldn’t help but feel a little guilty, especially in light of the conversation they’d shared. Perhaps he was reading the situation entirely wrong and Pitch hadn’t kidnapped him or stollen his sole possession. It was possible that Pitch was acting out of a burgeoning sense of friendship. Hard to believe, no matter how much Jack wanted it to be true, but possible.  
  
Uncomfortable with his conflicting thoughts, Jack decided to switch tracks, asking, “Why am I here?”  
  
“I’ve been asking myself that same question,” the Nightmare King slipped out from under the bed, straightening up to his impressive height. He gave a sigh, rolling his shoulders as he commented, “You could have gone to Antarctica and avoided this... _vulnerability_ entirely. What’s so special about Burgess?”  
  
“Okay,” Jack stared at him disbelievingly and began ticking reasons off on his fingers, “A) I prefer to stick to the Northern Hemisphere since I’m best known in Western Culture. B) Things went FUBAR pretty quick last time I was in Antarctica, if you will recall. C) I have to rest eventually, you giant hypocrite,” he glared at the dark spirit, wondering, desperately aching to know what it was like to sleep. “And D) not what I was asking. Why am I in your lair, Pitch?” He looked around for a second, then amended, “More importantly, why is my _bedroom_ in your lair?”  
  
Pitch towered over him like a gnarled and aged tree, a grim specter sent to haunt and torment him. Yet, paradoxically, when he spoke his tone was almost teasing. “I tried slipping away around August, but you clutched at me,” there was something oddly amused in his voice, as though he found the idea of Jack’s codependence endearing. “I figured if I was going to be stuck until you woke up, I might as well make myself comfortable.”  
  
The young Guardian flushed, frozen blood thawing enough to burn his cheeks a faint pink. He liked to think that he was a tough and independent person after three hundred years of solitude, so being told he’d done something so outright childlike made him uncomfortable. Fighting down his blush, he mumbled, “You didn’t have to stay.”

  
 “You say that,” Pitch grinned, a little manic around the edges, “but there was a two week period there where you did your best impression of an octopus.”  
  
“I can’t control myself during the daze,” Jack replied quickly, the blush spreading to his ears and down his neck.  
  
The grin slipped from the Nightmare King’s face. “Nor can you wake up once you’ve fully succumbed to it,” he pointed out with grudging concern. “You shouldn’t sleep in such an obvious, open place if you are incapable of defending yourself.”  
  
“From what, exactly? Global warming?” Jack laughed. “The only enemy I’ve ever known was apparently right there with me the whole time.”  
  
“Joke all you want, but your little cabin in the forest is hardly defensible,” Pitch snapped. There was thunder in his golden-silver eyes and a frown pulling at his lips. He snarled a little, continuing, “There’s a reason the other Guardians are so militant, why their homes are so well guarded.”  
  
Jack shrugged, a little unsure at the turn their conversation had taken. What did his home honestly matter to Pitch? “They’re also a lot older than me, have had more time to get on other spirits’ bad sides. You said it yourself: I’m a neutral party.”  
  
“ _Was_ a neutral party,” Pitch countered. “You’re a Guardian now which means, like it or not, you’ll inherit some of their enemies and undoubtedly make a few of your own.”  
  
“So, what then? I need to hollow out my own little dimensional space and build an Ice Palace?” He’d thought about it once or twice, but hadn’t really seen the point. It wasn’t as though he needed a lot of space. What exactly would he fill a palace with when his only real possessions were the clothes on his back and his staff? Not to mention that he would only occupy the place for maybe five month of the year; not needing to sleep made a home more of a luxury than a necessity.  
  
But the older spirit didn’t seem to catch his sarcasm. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he replied, something suspiciously like genuine concern bleeding through his words.  
  
“You’re actually bothered by this,” Jack marveled. _Pitch_ was worried for him? No one ever bothered with Jack. The other Guardians hadn’t even seemed the least bit curious about his accommodations, yet the _Nightmare King_ was expressing his disapproval. When exactly had he stepped into the Twilight Zone?  
  
“I’m not above concern, Jack,” Pitch replied, voice steady but his eyes looked a little hurt. “You may be my enemy, but there’s no reason we can’t be civil toward each other.”  
  
And there was that guilt again, for always assuming the worst, but there was a quiet doubt, too. Why should Pitch be concerned for him? What reason did the bogeyman have to even bother considering Jack’s situation? They’d had a moment of understanding, but did that negate the horrible things Pitch had done?  
  
Jack was torn. Pitch might be playing him for a fool, but it was possible that he’d been right the first time and the older spirit really had sought him out in desperation. He couldn’t imagine how long Pitch had been alone, slowly fading from belief, unable to reach out for even the simplest of comforts. The madness that slowly bubbled under the Nightmare King’s skin was simply a result of how he’d been treated. In another century or two, that might have been Jack.  
  
Mind running in circles, Jack snapped, “Well that’s a vastly different tune from what you were singing six months ago.”

  
“Yes, and that worked out _so_ well for me, didn’t it?” Pitch laughed bitterly. “You’re young, but you know exactly why I was driven to that madness and, against your better judgement, you sympathize.” He drew closer, offering his hand out to the younger spirit, just as he had under the bed. “Is it wrong for me to want to return that favor?”  
  
Jack regarded the outstretched hand warily, as he had before. He’d felt guilty for not accepting it the first time, but the truth was that he wasn’t sure what Pitch was offering him. “What exactly are you trying to do here?” he asked quietly, gesturing between the two of them. “I mean, what are you hoping will come out of these mutual bonding experiences?” The hand might have been offering him a friendship, but it also might have been offering him an alliance. Jack was always willing to be reckless for a little attention, but he wasn’t about to turn against his newfound believers. What did Pitch want from him? “Explain this thing between us, because I no longer understand our relationship.”  
  
Pitch smiled sadly, his had wavering, but he didn’t withdraw it. “I believe they call it being frenemies these days.”  
  
Which wasn’t an answer. Not one he could use, anyway. Sighing, Jack quietly demanded, “Put my bedroom back.”  
  
“Why does that make you mad?” the older spirit asked, his head cocking to the side.  
  
“Because I can’t read you, Pitch,” Jack explained. He sat down heavily on the bed, feeling wearier than his three hundred years warranted. “I don’t know if you’re actually concerned or if you’re just putting on a song and dance to sway my allegiance.”  
  
The Nightmare King seemed surprised at that. “So your answer is to run away?”  
  
It was a challenge but, for once, Jack didn’t feel the need to meet it. There was something there between him and Pitch, something that had the potential to be either truly meaningful or downright horrifying. A year ago, Jack might have been more willing to jump in head-first and see where fate might take him, but he wasn’t that person anymore. He had nothing against taking risks, but he wasn’t really in a position to be playing with fire. Jack was a Guardian now, and that came with a lot of responsibility. He was sworn to protect not only children but his fellow Guardians as well. A large part of the young spirit sympathized with Pitch, but he couldn’t allow the Nightmare King to jeopardize the new life that he’d earned.  
  
“There are things you said earlier that I know you didn’t make up; there is a bone-deep anguish in your eyes that I understand because I’ve felt it too,” Jack replied, his heart heavy. “But just because it’s true doesn’t mean that you’re using it to anyone’s benefit.” He nodded, staring at his feet, “So, yeah, my answer is to run away, because I need to think about how much of this might have been genuine and how much was simply the result of exhaustion.”  
  
Pitch moved away, into the shadows, but if he was angry he didn’t show it. His reply, when it came, was knowing. “Those aren’t answers you can find on your own.”  
  
Jack didn’t feel like arguing; he was oddly defeated for having just come out of his daze. “Put my bedroom back,” he repeated.  
  
“All right, Jack,” the bogeyman soothed, barely an outline in the dark anymore, “but I want you to think long and hard about why you’re being so defensive right now. I think you’ll find that it has less to do with your feelings being hurt and more to do with the fact that, after three centuries of neglect, you don’t know how to respond to someone else’s concern.”  
  
Denial: violent, ugly, and unavoidable. Because, yes, he did respond poorly to other’s concern. It came from being what Jamie called a ‘problem child’. Jack wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he’d had three hundred years to come to terms with being alone, so he knew it would take more than just a few conversations to break through the walls he’d set up. Just because he acknowledged it, though, didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it. Instead, he snapped, “Don’t pretend to know me.”  
  
“I don’t have to pretend,” Pitch laughed, his shadowy powers already sending Jack and his room back where they belonged. “You, of all people, know that.”  
  
And the hell of it was that he did. Like it or not, the two of them simply understood each other.

**Author's Note:**

> This is turning into a multi-part series, no question about it. Here’s the deal, though: I’m an Animation student and I’m in three studio classes (which is not recommended in our program) so I don’t have a lot of free time on my hands. I started these first stories over Spring Break, so it only took me about a week to write, but with the second half of the semester looming over my shoulder it may be a while between new parts. On the upside, it’s only a month and a half until the end of the semester, after which I will have a lot more free time to work with. I’ll do my best between now and then, but I can’t make any promises.
> 
> To soothe some fears I’m sure just popped up, I’d like to say that I already have an initial ten parts planned (these first two parts included) and I really look forward to writing them.


End file.
